


Chase The Clouds To Live Tomorrow

by Lion_owl



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (or at least that's the goal), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e09 Lady of the Lake, F/F, Fluff, Freya lives!, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Intimacy, Light Angst, Romance, Season/Series 02, Slow Burn, background/mentioned gwen/arthur, merlin/lancelot is established relationship & a secondary pairing in this fic, morgana won't turn evil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 12:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lion_owl/pseuds/Lion_owl
Summary: Freya doesn't die that night; instead, Merlin and Morgana find a way to cure her, and she moves in with Gwen, and reopens her family’s forge (future colleagues with Elyan hell yeah)Freya and Morgana find themselves falling in love.Also: Lancelot comes to visit, Arthur and Leon are their friends, and everyone is happy.





	Chase The Clouds To Live Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nebula5030](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebula5030/gifts).

> title is from _beneath a blackened sky_ by beyond the black (audio: [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72DRvrkvYCU); lyrics: [azlyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beyondtheblack/beneathablackenedsky.html)) the context of the song implies, in my head at least, that uther fancies himself something of a god, which i don't expect is outwith the realms of possibility.

“Ahem.”

There is another cough behind him, and he turns to see Morgana standing in the doorway. She has returned to her chambers not far behind Gwen. She raises an eyebrow; “And just what do you think you’re doing?”

“I… er…”

“He says it’s moth-ridden,” Gwen says, the soft curve of her mouth and the twinkle in her eye telling him she doesn’t believe it.

“Morgana, sorry, but I need to go.” Merlin says, trying to get out of the door, but she blocks him.

“With that?” she asks, holding out her hands for the dress.

“Like I told Gwen, it’s full of holes and needs to be burnt.”

“That’s funny, because I just hung it back in the wardrobe after lunch,” Gwen says.

“What are you doing, Merlin?” Morgana asks again.

He hesitates. But this is Morgana and Gwen; they both helped the boy, Mordred, and they both know about his magic. Perhaps he should trust them with this. “It’s the druid woman.”

“The one everyone is looking for? You know where she is?”

“I promised to get her out of Camelot. Nobody will expect to see her dressed in silk.”

“Well you should have said so,” Morgana steps out of the doorway and gestures forwards. “Lead the way.”

“I’m not sure we should all go,” Merlin says. “She’s so timid, I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“I’ll stay here,” Gwen says. “I have a lot of tidying up to do anyway.”

Freya looks delighted when Merlin gets back to her hiding place, holding out the dress. “It’s beautiful,” she says, taking it and holding it against her body.

“You look like a princess,” Merlin says.

“I’m not. I can’t take this,” she folds it carefully and hands it back to him.

“Yes you can,” Morgana says, stepping around the corner into view. Freya recoils.

“Don’t worry, this is my friend Morgana, she’s going to help us,” Merlin assures her.

“_Lady _Morgana?” Freya asks. “As in _Uther’s ward_?”

“I may have the misfortune to be his ward, but that does not mean I am his friend,” Morgana says, and then for good measure, she adds: “His treatment of our kind is despicable and I long for the day his reign ends.” 

“Our kind?” Freya looks between both of them, confusion and fear written across her face.

“I have magic too,” Morgana admits. “Merlin’s been teaching me how to control it. The dress was mine and I want you to have it.”

“I don’t deserve it.” Freya just looks sad now. “You keep trying to help; first Merlin, and now you too Morgana.

“Of course you do,” Merlin says. “We can leave tonight, as soon as it gets dark.”

“I can’t leave Camelot, unfortunately,” Morgana says. “Last time I tried, Uther nearly executed dozens of people. But I’ll help you escape, and if you will have me I will visit whenever I can.”

“We’ll need supplies,” Freya says. “Food, water.”

“I’ll get them,” Merlin says.

“I’ll get you some blankets,” Morgana says.

“Thank you,” Freya says, as the two of them leave to run their respective errands.

But when they return to the tunnels, the dress is laid out on the ground, and Freya is gone.

That night, she kills Halig, the bounty hunter who had brought her here, and Prince Arthur strikes her with his sword; they stand, Freya on one side facing off against Arthur and his knights, and she is ready to kill him. Ready to kill them all.

Then Merlin shows up in the courtyard, hidden in the shadows from the knights, but his presence felt by Freya through the magic which binds them. And for the first time ever since she’d been cursed, she shies away. With great relief, she is allowed to let her targets go, and take flight.

She shouldn’t be returning to the tunnels, for she knows Merlin and Morgana will come after her, but perhaps she wants that, and perhaps she deserves that, at long last, for she is surely to die tonight anyway; the wound Arthur had caused feels too deep.

Yet still she flees deeper into the tunnels until she reverts back to her human form, and then she lies down, still naked, and cries.

Moments later, she feels the soft fabric of Merlin’s jacket covering her chest, shielding her from the cold and a miniscule amount of the shame, but still she cries.

“You must hate me.”

“No,” he says, his voice gentle but firm, his fingers brushing her hair out of her face.

Morgana appears in her field of vision then, and she is holding the purple dress Freya had laid out on the ground, farther up the tunnel. She says nothing.

Freya tells them the tale of how she came to be cursed.

“We will find a way to break this curse,” Morgana promises.

The wound, Merlin informs her once he’s examined it, will not be her demise after all. He has to go back to his chambers to collect a medicine bag, but he will be able to treat it. “Don’t worry,” he says to Morgana, when a worried look comes across her face. “I’ve learned a lot since last time. I can’t bring Gaius down here until we can be sure he won’t tell Uther.”

Morgana nods, seeming unconvinced but accepting the lack of choice in the matter. Freya doesn’t question what he means by ‘last time’. And then she’s left alone with Morgana for the first time, and she doesn’t know what to say.

“You should put this on,” Morgana says after a while. Freya can assume she means the purple dress, but sits up to see, anyway. She opens her mouth to argue but Morgana keeps going. “At the very least until we can get you some new clothes of your own. You’ll get cold.”

“Thank you,” Freya says. She had almost let herself put it on earlier, before she decided she should attempt to run away alone instead, and she had not been able to find a way into it. “It’s more elaborate than anything I’m used to,” she says now, hoping Morgana will get her meaning. She doesn’t want to ask any more of her, and she’s certainly embarrassed to ask _this_.

“I’ll help you,” Morgana says. “I know what a pain these dresses can be. Even Gwen has commented on it in the past.”

“Gwen?” Freya asks, and a strange feeling washes over her for a moment.

“My maid,” Morgana says.

“Oh.”

She has to put Merlin’s jacket aside in order to get into the dress, and her cheeks heat up at the thought, expecting to feel embarrassment, but it doesn’t come:

Perhaps it is because Morgana most likely glimpsed her in her Bastet form, and that that, to Freya, is far worse than any amount of the dust and grime which cling to her skin, than the tears which stain her face or the blood which stains her body;

Perhaps it is because Morgana looks at her with such kindness despite all of that, and does her best to keep her gaze averted from the bruises and scars as she helps her into the dress and fusses with the straps and laces, rather than burning into them with questions;

And perhaps it is because there are other forces at play. Forces which Morgana is yet to acknowledge and Freya is yet to understand, forces which bind them together beyond the magic which binds them both to Merlin as well as each other.

Morgana leaves an untied section, at her shoulder, so that Merlin will be able to tend to the wound.

Merlin comes back a short time later with his medicine bag on his shoulder, a cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand, and a large book in the other. He sits and places it all gently on the ground. The cloth falls away to reveal a loaf of fresh bread, a block of cheese and a selection of fruit.

“Where did you get all of that at this time of night?” Morgana asks, the note of disapproval on her face belied by the humour in her voice.

Merlin taps his nose. “Let me disinfect and bandage Freya’s shoulder first, and then we’ll eat while I read this.” He doesn’t gesture to the book, but Freya glances at it, and she catches the word ‘curses’ in its title.

Arthur goes to the throne room that night, and reports to Uther that Halig is dead, but that the creature is too. Arthur doesn’t know that for sure. He only knows that there’s a _possibility _the blow he dealt was fatal, and that it was enough to make the creature flee.

He’s haunted by the face of a young woman who begged for her life, while Halig sneered, twisted and delighted. He tells Uther the creature is dead so he will not be forced to pursue her further.

He just hopes she got away.

The next night, and the night after that, the creature does not attack.

The Curse of the Bastet, Merlin discovers, has several purposes. He reads this to Freya and Morgana from the book he’s borrowed from Gaius’ shelf:

_“The person afflicted will be forced, at the stroke of midnight, to turn into a vicious, bloodthirsty beast. The Bastet, which is described by writers of old as a monster of nightmare that inhabits the twilight world between the living and the dead. This punishes the afflicted with a life of isolation, as surely nobody will feel safe to be around them any longer, not with the knowledge that the Bastet’s prey is indiscriminate, and even the afflicted person’s closest family could become its next victim.”_

Silent tears escape onto Freya’s cheeks, and she wipes them away without comment. Merlin’s reading trails off.

“The rest is a bit technical,” he says. “But I’m confident I can reverse engineer this thing, and free you of it.”

“Until then, I will still have to kill,” Freya points out.

“Not necessarily,” Merlin begins.

By Merlin’s reasoning – which proves to be sound – a curse designed to create isolation through fear, ought to be bewildered by the refusal of its victim’s loved ones to be afraid. That, he suspects, is the reason why Arthur’s life was spared: when Merlin showed up in the courtyard, wishing only to help Freya, its hold on her was nudged just enough out of sync to allow her to regain autonomy.

And so – Merlin concludes, the next night, and the night after that, and every night until they find a way to cure this thing permanently, someone – either Merlin, Morgana or Gwen; or a combination; or all three – must arrive shortly before midnight to keep Freya company while the Bastet takes hold, and until it relinquishes her.

She must still transform, but with her three new friends by her side, the drive towards killing is dulled, satisfied by the live birds Merlin somehow manages to smuggle down to the tunnels. It makes the transformations more painful – the curse’s attempts at fighting back, perhaps – but it’s worth it, because the King believes her to be dead, and his guards no longer hunt for her.

Throughout the days, Merlin and Morgana work tirelessly – with Gaius’ much-needed help, once he’s convinced Freya is no longer a threat to the city – to find a cure, and it’s almost two weeks later when the pair of them make their way down to the tunnel, where Gwen is currently sitting with Freya, and in Merlin’s pocket there is a bottle containing several discrete, brightly-coloured layers of potion.

“This should do the trick,” Merlin says as he passes it to Freya. “I believe.”

She takes the lid off and takes a sip, and tries not to make a face.

“I know, I expect it’s bogging,” Merlin admits.

“You do _not_ want to know what’s in it,” Morgana adds, and Gwen shakes her head imperceptibly.

“I expect it’s better than the alternative,” Freya says, and tips back her head and drinks as fast as she can, the layers moving over and around each other but refusing to mix. The other three watch intently until the bottle is drained.

“How do you feel?” Gwen asks.

“No different than before,” Freya says. “How should I feel?”

“We don’t know, we haven’t done this before,” Morgana says. “All we can do is wait until tonight and hope.”

“I’ll stay here a few more nights then, just to be sure,” Freya says.

It had been discussed what would happen if they were successful in finding a cure – they’d not dared talk about what would happen if they were unsuccessful, not dared even think about it lest they tempted fate – and Gwen had invited Freya to move in with her. She had tried to sell her dad’s bed after he died, but none would buy it, so she’d stowed it away in the forge, and said they’d bring it back to the house for Freya.

That conversation had also led to the revelation that Freya had been a blacksmith before she had been cursed, so Gwen had asked her to get her dad’s place up and running again, said she hated seeing it so quiet. Freya had been delighted to accept the opportunity, to return to what had been her passion in life.

“We all will,” Gwen says. “We’ll all stay.”

Merlin nods.

“Gwen and I will return to the palace briefly,” Morgana says. “The kitchens will shortly be quiet; we’ll collect some supper.”

Uther had held a feast for a group of nobles earlier in the day, and they dine heartily on the leftovers.

Though, Morgana thinks bitterly, _leftovers _is quite one way of putting it; leftovers which are plentiful enough to be a meal in and of themselves, leftovers which could feed half a village – and often do, when she and Gwen run such errands under the cover of the night – but instead go to waste decaying in the pens of livestock that haven’t even close to the appetite required to finish it all.

Tonight, the world shan’t go amiss for four portions being carried quietly down to the tunnels under the castle.

When midnight strikes, Freya reports a familiar, terrible ache spreading throughout her body; Morgana, Gwen and Merlin all agree that outwardly, she remains entirely unchanged.

A week later – one which feels like eternity but is nothing compared to the true eternity which stretches behind her – Freya packs up what has almost become a bedroom, and departs these wretched tunnels for good.


End file.
